Carrier for necked containers



June 1942- T. H. JENKINS ,288,358

CARRIER FOR NECKED CONTAINERS Filed April 20, 1940 Patented June 30,1942 UNITED sra'ree ATENT QFFICE 1 Claim.

It is common practice to provide bottles, jars and other glasscontainers equipped with reduced sections or necks adjacent to the topwith suitable handle devices usually comprising a ring-like elementsurrounding the neck and a bail connected to the ring-like element. Theobject of the present invention is to produce a novel carrier of thiskind composed entirely of wire, which shall be simple and inexpensive inconstruction, which may be shipped in bulk without danger of becomingentangled, which may be easily applied to the object with which it is tobe associated, which will remain secured attached to the object afterapplication thereto, and which shall present no sharp edges or cornersthat might cause damage or injury to persons or things coming in contacttherewith.

The various features of novelty whereby my invention is characterizedwill hereinafter be pointed out with particularity in the claims; but,for a full understanding of my invention and of its objects andadvantages, reference may be had to the following detailed descriptiontaken in connection with the accompanying drawing, wherein:

Figure l is a horizontal section through the neck portion of a glasscontainer provided with one of my improved carriers; Fig. 2 is a sideview of the upper part of the container, showing the bail or handle inits upright, carrying position; and Fig. 3 is a view of the carrierlooking toward the device from a point at the right of Fig. 2, showingonly fragments of the ring and bail.

Referring to the drawing, I and 2 represent two pieces of strong,resilient wire bent into approximately semicircular shapes, butflattened somewhat from true semicircles. The wire I has at its endsupturned portions shaped into closed or substantially closed eyes 3 thatare parallel to each other and whose planes are at right angles to aline connecting the same. The ends of the wire 2 are bent intoelongated, closed loops 4 lying in the plane of the wire. The parts areso proportioned that the eyes 3 can be inserted through the loops 4 frombelow. The third member of the carrier consists of a wire bail 5 havingits ends bent laterally and rearwardly to form open hooks 6. When thesehooks are inserted in the eyes 3 after the latter have been brought upthrough the loops 4, the wires l and 2 form a more or less oval ring thetwo halves of which cannot become separated from each other until thehooks are disengaged from the eyes. This ring is made of such a sizethat when it is assembled about the neck A of a container, the ring maycontact with the sides of the neck at diametrically opposed points eachof which is equally spaced from what may be termed the hinge jointsbetween the two halves of the ring, while the connected ends of the twowires constituting the ring stand at some distance away from theadjacent exterior surfaces of the container neck. The parts are soproportioned that when the carrier is symmetrically disposed upon thecontainer, as it usually will be, neither hook on the bail B can beshifted inwardly far enough to clear the eye within which it is engaged.However, if an instrument is inserted between the neck of the containerand the ring at one of the joints in the latter, this part of the ringmay be forced away from the neck of the container far enough to permitthe corresponding hook to be released. After one hook has been released,the other can be easily withdrawn from the eye with which it is normallyengaged.

The container illustrated is one in which the upper part of the neckportion is screw-threaded and which is adapted to be closed by means ofa screw top B of thin sheet metal. The plane of the section in Fig. 1 istaken at a level below the screw threads on the container, whereas, ascan be seen in Fig. 2, the hooks 6 are disposed in the region of thescrew threads, where the diameter of the neck of the container isgreatest. Thus, Fig. 2 demonstrates more satisfactorily than does Fig.1, the feature of normally having the lower ends of the bail so close tothe neck of the container that the hooks cannot be withdrawn inwardlyuntil after the ring has been manipulated to provide room at one jointin the ring, by distorting the ring on the opposite side of thecontainer, to allow one of the hooks to be drawn clear of its eye.

It will be seen that when the container is being carried about suspendedfrom its bail, the weight of the container comes mainly upon the middleportion of each of the two half rings, while the ends of the half rings,namely, the hinge connections, are drawn upward. Thus, the ring iscaused to exert a clamping action on the container neck, while the partsthereof adjacent to the hinge joints stand clear of the neck and aredrawn upwardly so as to bring the hooks even closer to the sides of theneck than they are when the ring is not supporting any weight. In otherwords, the heavier the contained, the less danger there is that thehooks can he accidentally disengaged from the eyes with which theycooperate.

It will be seen that the eyes and loops on the ends of the wires I and2, respectively, are closed or at least closed to such an extent that noloop can be hooked into another loop or into an eye, whereas the eyescan do no worse than extend through loops in other wires with which theymay happen to register. Consequently, when any one of the three wires isshipped in bulk, all of the pieces remain separated from each other sothat no time need be wasted in disentangling them when the parts for acomplete carrier are to be assembled.

The eyes 3 are preferably formed at the upper ends of vertical stemsections 7 on the wire I, so that in the use of the device the loops 4lie below the eyes proper and engage with the wire I in the anglebetween the stem 7 and the body portion of the wire. Thus, the wire lmay be said to have at its ends hooks that extend up through the loops tand have their free ends fashioned into eyes that lie above the loops.

While I have illustrated and described with particularity only a singlepreferred form my invention, I do not desire to be limited to the exactstructural details thus illustrated and described, but intend to coverall forms and arrangements which come within the definitions of myinvention constituting the appended claim.

I claim:

The combination with a container having a neck underlying a portion oflarger diameter of a carrier comprising two bowed resilient wiresembracing said neck from opposite sides, one of said wires having at itsends elongated loops lying in the plane thereof, the other wire havingits end sections turned upwardly and formed at their upper ends intoeyes lying in planes at right angles to a line extending between thesame, said upturned sections extending through said loops and bringingthe eyes above the latter and below the top of the container, and a bailhaving at its ends open hooks entered in said eyes from the inner sidesof the latter; the ring-like member produced by the bowed wires beinglarger than the circumference of said neck and being flattened somewhatto cause said eyes to stand at distances from such portion of thecontainer above the neck that is of larger diameter than the latter thatare normally less than the distances that the hooks project through saideyes, and either hook being adapted to be left free to be withdrawn fromthe corresponding eye upon prying that part of the ring-like membercontaining the latter eye far enough away from the container.

TAZEWELL H. JENKINS.

